Political Correctness Gone Too Far

            Adolescence is a beautiful time of discovery and imagination.  A time when the troubles of the world are far from your mind and having a rotten day meant nothing more than your mother forgetting to pack you a dessert in your lunch.  However, thanks to the infinite wisdom of one middle school principal, the students of St. Barnabas now have much bigger things to worry about.

            On what started off as a normal day, the students of St. Barnabas Middle School filed into the auditorium, not entirely sure what to expect.  Their principal, Miss Beverly Tobacco, looked fiercely into the eyes of those students who were brave enough to lift their heads.  A principal who was normally known for her enormous smile and outgoing personality now looked aged and cold from the wrinkles that spread across her brow.  The young boys fidgeted in their seats and the girls whispered to one another rumors concerning what this meeting would be about. 

            Miss Tobacco began the meeting by informing the students that a serious problem had erupted at their school and that it was going to end here and now.  She then proceeded to tell the students how sick and tired she was of hearing the phrase “that’s gay” in the halls and on the playground.  She talked about how, at a Catholic School, they should never persecute a group of people and always strive to accept everyone as part of God’s family.      

            Sounds like a pretty great speech, doesn’t it?  We should be teaching equality and respect in our schools and perhaps our children need to have reality slapped into their faces every once and a while.  In fact, if she would have stopped there, I would have been the first person to stand up and applaud.  In a world where hate and discrimination have become so common that middle school children do not even bat an eye at saying comments like “that’s gay” or “how retarded” taking a stand against this is very commendable.  However, when is imposing political correctness taken too far?  Well, Miss Tobacco did not stop there and if there is a line to cross, she crossed it.

            Miss Tobacco then had each student count off by five and had every fifth student stand.  It took a while, but when it was over there were about thirty students standing.  She then proceeded to tell a group of twelve to fourteen-year-old students that statistics showed that one in every five of them would grow up to be a homosexual.  Correct me if I am wrong, but don’t the majority of Catholics, including the Pope, believe that homosexuality a sin?  And what about the poor kids who were left standing.  They were now the gay kids.  Political correctness, I support, but telling my child that there is a one in five chance that they will grow up to be a homosexual I definitely do not.  Kids left school that day with tears streaming down their faces, terrified of their pending fate.    Of course, they were no longer saying “that’s gay” because they were now saying “you’re gay” to every fifth person they met.  The students of St. Barnabas Middle School were also now looking for homosexual tendencies in their peers in order to reassure themselves that they were not the statistic.  After all, this was an educated person who imparted this wisdom upon them, so it had to be true. 

            Whether these children grow up to be gay, straight or indifferent, it is absurd to tell them that they have no way of escaping the fact that they are a statistic.  That who they are is not a matter of the choices they make, but a matter of what some analyst sitting in a dusty office crunching figures tells them they should be.

            Sadly, the worst part of this situation is that the damage has not only been engraved into these young impressionable minds, but that this principal is still the principal of this school.  Because, of course, firing someone for standing up for gay rights would be a serious breach of ethics.  Never mind focusing on the psychological damage she has placed upon the children in her care.   

            So go ahead and teach my kids manners if you think they need them and call them out when they cross the line.  But please don’t push your own personal beliefs or ethics on them until they are old enough to make their own educated decision.